Police cadets learn to deal with mental illness issues during speech at Lorain County Community College (with video)

By KELLY PETRYSZYN

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

ELYRIA -- More police officers commit suicide than are shot on the job. About one in five police officers will have mental health issues. These are a few of the startling statistics brought up during mental health advocate George Staursky's speech to Lorain County Community College police academy cadets yesterday.

The cadets are taking a course on interacting with special needs population as part of the basic police academy school. The course involves 16 hours of state-mandated instruction on the topic.

"One of the things we talk about at the academy is that you're an ordinary individual placed in extraordinary circumstances on a regular basis," said academy commander Paul Graupmann. "Some people can handle that very easily and just don't have a problem with it. But the kinds of things people see and are forced to do whether it may be the death of a child or the use of fatal force in a situation or someone hurts you in a way where you end up in a hospital, everybody reacts to that differently. There is some reluctance on the part of the officers to seek counseling and as a result of that the pressures just build up on police officers, because of the work and the long and unusual hours, as a result it manifests itself in situations where an officer would unfortunately kill himself."

Some policies such as one that says a FBI agent is not allowed to have a gun while taking psychoactive drugs tend to deter law enforcement officials from going to counseling or a psychiatrist. Graupmann said this is an issue because there is thinking in police work that if officers go to counseling, their colleagues will lose confidence in them to do their job. This notion is a mistake, he emphasized.

Staursky told the officers in training that they may personally struggle with mental health issues.

"They are seeing a lot of things that will trigger these disorders," he said. "They're going to see a murder scene that I'm never going to see. It's going to trigger some depression."

He shared tales from his own struggles with mental illness including two suicide attempts and a night when he found himself in the hospital. His low point was when he was taken to the hospital after an episode in 2001 and restrained to the hospital bed. He kept trying to flip the hospital bed and finally a nurse held a mirror up to Staursky and asked him, "How do you look now?" Shortly after he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

He emphasized to young students the most difficult part of dealing with mental illness is the stigma.

"The stigma is worse than any illness," Staursky said.

He cautioned cadets to never loose empathy or forget to show their human side when responding to calls regarding mental illness.

Cadet Patrick Jama took this point to heart. "This is a reinforcement that you need to talk to them on a personal level," he said. He felt better equipped to handle calls involving mental illness when he eventually becomes an Elyria police officer.

Over the past 12 years, Staursky said police have been making in strides in dealing with mental illness.

"Today, it seems like police are the only ones doing it right when they are dealing with people with this issues," Staursky said. "They de-escalate the situation. It's extremely rare that mistakes are made on the police side of it. The mistakes normally happen further on down the line,"

Law enforcement has put more emphasis on mental health training the past few years with the evolvement of crisis intervention training.

"We finally understand the depth of behavior brought on by mental illness is really a physical illness rather than just someone acting up," Staursky said. "Police officers have grasped that. They are the ones who have gone out on the forefront and decided they wanted to change things."

Going forward, Staursky said he would like to see a police officer overrule a physician because they are going to see psychosis firsthand.

Graupmann would like to see more training for law enforcement officers in this area since they are front lines of dealing with mental illness.

In closing, Staursky told the law enforcement hopefuls to not turn their back on seeking treatment if they do succumb to mental illness.